Family crosses 10 km into Kashmir unnoticed

How effective is barbed wire fencing along the Line of Control in preventing infiltration when kids and aged people can cross unnoticed?

A family of 12 people, including five children and an old lady, crossed over the LoC in the wee hours of Friday in Tanghdar area in Karnah sector of north Kashmir.

The 12 people, which included an eight-month-old toddler, reached the police post, located 10 km away from the LoC, and presented themselves, sources in the state home department said.

They have been detained and appropriate action will be taken against them as some of them are Pakistani citizens, the sources said, adding the matter had been taken up with the army authorities.

The army maintains the family had reported to their outpost, a charge denied by the police.

The family, in its statement to police, said they had migrated to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir between 1988 and 1996 and settled there after marriage.

The police had also reported the matter to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office and the Pakistani citizens would be served a notice, they said.

The family was that of Mohammad Ashraf Lone, Zahoor Ahmad and Bashir Ahmad Peer.

While Lone and Ahmad, both residents of Hajinar village of Karnah, had fled to PoK, 25-year-old Peer had gone across the border in 1996 from Kupwara.

Lone and Ahmad married local girls in PoK, while Peer married a local girl of Kupwara identified as Zareena who had also fled to PoK in 1990 along with her parents.

Elderly woman Gul Jan is the mother of Ahmad who had accompanied her son across the border.

The others who surrendered were identified as Zareena and her eight-month-old daughter Zabia and two-year-old son Sahil, Poshmal, wife of Lone, their seven-year-old daughter Kulsoom and sons Waqar (five) and Danish (three).

Nashat Bibi, wife of Ahmed, and his mother Gul Jan were the others who had infiltrated, they said.